Lowrider’s last cruise in print

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Law enforcement hasn’t always agreed. A 1958 law in California outlawed cars that had any part lower than the bottom of the wheel’s rim. From then on, lowriders became associated with gangs and violence, arguably spurred by racist stereotypes of the young, often working-class brown and black men who drove the cars. “The police didn’t understand it,” Hernandez says, recalling the resistance lowriders faced in the ’70s and ’80s. “They saw it as threatening.” Drivers out to cruise knew to expect harassment. Police would issue tickets for reckless driving or shut down Mission Street altogether to stop lowriders. Hernandez says he was cited 113 times, and recalls some of his peers being arrested for cruising. If they headed across the bridge to the East Bay, it was the same: “If we went to a town like Walnut Creek, we ended up getting chased out by the (locals) or by police,” says David Gonzales, a Richmond-born lowrider and cartoonist who ran the comic strip The Adventures of Hollywood in the magazine from 1978 to 1983. The police involvement always seemed to have an element of racial profiling, according to Hernandez. “While we were doing that on Mission Street, across the city, in the Sunset, on the Great Highway, the hot rodders — which were all the white boys — were racing for pink slips,” he says, meaning the winner takes the loser’s car. “And the police and the city never messed with them.” Covers of Lowrider magazine, including the inaugural 1977 issue of Lowrider magazine (center). | Lowrider Covers of Lowrider magazine, including the inaugural 1977 issue of Lowrider magazine (center). | Lowrider Lowrider magazine provided an antidote. Spurred by the energy around the Chicano civil rights movement, Madrid, Gonzalez and Nunez set out to feature lowrider culture with appreciation and affection, while also covering social and political issues important to the Chicano community. Alongside customized cars, Lowrider’s pages featured sections like La Raza Report, short stories, poetry and comics made by Chicanos. At one point, they even started a now-defunct music label, Thump Records, and had a scholarship program for young Chicanos. “It did a lot of reporting on social issues that were affecting Latinos,” Hernandez says. “But more importantly, it also became a conversation piece. You could talk with your family, your friends, your homies so it became a way to not only communicate but to inform, educate and begin a conversation.” The early success of the magazine spoke to the need for such an outlet, as it grew from a homespun DIY-style project to a publication with considerable reach. “I’ll never forget when Sonny (Madrid) called me and said ‘I got the first issue,’” Hernandez recalls. Hernandez leaned on the connections he had built in San Francisco and throughout the Bay Area through his organizing with the United Farm Workers to help get the magazine stocked in record stores, panaderias and other local businesses.